Freshman Tegan Olson and Laura Duffy set the pace Friday morning as the Great Falls High cross country team continued preparations for the season with intrasquad time trials at Elks Riverside Park.

Meanwhile, freshman Mackenzie George and junior Collin Buck were the winners on Thursday as the C.M. Russell High teams competed against each other in time trials on the West Bank at River’s Edge Trail.

Both the Bison of coach Bob Stingley and the Rustlers of coach Doug Darko open the season officially on Friday at the Mike Reynolds Invitational in Cut Bank.

In the GFH boys’ race, Bryce Krattiger led for about half of the 2.5-mile race , until he was overtaken by Olson, who pulled away in the last mile to win by 24 seconds in a time of 14:50. Krattiger was second in 15:14, followed by sophomore Nathan Jones in 15:26, junior Connor Dennis in 15:33 and junior Will Hoard in 16:32.

In the Bison girls’ race, youth prevailed again as Duffy took over the lead at about the halfway mark and went on to win in a time of 17:56. Last year’s top finisher, senior Hannah Schaffer, improved her time by over a minute and finished second in 19:17. Sophomore Kuhnee Kuka finished third in 19:22 and sophomore Nely Baltazar was fourth in 19:25. Senior Lyndee Feisthamel was fifth in 19:41 and senior Kenedee Roberts was sixth in 19:46. Sophomore Elvis Heavy Gun was seventh in 19:55.

In CMR’s time trials, Buck finished in 17:04.64. Freshman Cooper West was four seconds behind in an impressive effort. Other top-five finishes came from Jacob Blake (17:37.88), Vincent Bohl (17:42.95) and Edin Agamenoni (18:59.2899).

In the girls’ race, George finished in 21:16. Another freshman, Annabella Aline, finished second in 22:12. Roya Blake was third in 23:37, followed by Olivia Bauman (24:27) and Sydney Dickinson (25:14).

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